


C'est déjà gémir, Jeeves

by greywash



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Chekhov's Mule, F/F, Gen, Incidental cheesemaking, Incidental farm animals, Incidental handicrafts, Incidental lesbians, Incidental winemaking, Possibly marginally more risqué than canon, Relationship Construction Rube Goldberg Machines, The Loire Valley, Yet another Yuletide during which Author must apologize to the French, harold..., marginally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 22:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17031147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash
Summary: Jeeves and Wooster go to the Loire Valley to recollect Anatole from the arms of his people; and instead find themselves entangled with a winery, a French dairymaid, a commune of expat Sapphists, a duel, an ill-tempered mule, and the inevitable Lady Florence Craye.





	C'est déjà gémir, Jeeves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyonie17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyonie17/gifts).



> It is my sincerest hope that this story is exactly as ridiculous as the summary makes it sound; and I hope it fits the bill, **lyonie17**! 
> 
> This is basically gen: it _does_ contain a truly absurd number of references to romantic relationships between and among ladies, but—much like the stories themselves—both of our heroes remain unattached, by both event and inclination, throughout. However—also much like the stories themselves—it wouldn't be much of a stretch to read it as Jeeves/Wooster, should you desire to do so. There is a small amount of French-language text embedded in the story, with (limited) hovertext translations (and, for some things, a more complete explanation in the end-notes).
> 
> My deepest thanks as always to my beta-slash-plot-hole-filler-slash-translator-slash-consultant-on-all-things-France, **[breathedout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout)**.

"I say, Jeeves," I said. "Now this, I'd have to say, is not quite the triumphant return to the auld sod that I'd imagined, what?" 

"Indeed not, sir," said Jeeves, from behind me. "However, I believe we may yet permit ourselves hope that our sojourn upon this animal may be relatively brief—" 

—as I indeed _did_ most profoundly hope. The beast upon which we were at that moment making our heroic dash into battle was not, as one might hope, a noble steed of flowing mane and an aspect suggestive of the highest echelons of equine nobility, but, in fact, a very large and _exceedingly_ truculent donkey— _Mule, sir_ , Jeeves had said—which we had liberated from its owner under somewhat inauspicious circumstances; and, furthermore, our heroic dash into battle was not so much _into_ battle as it was _from_ it, though of course, as the poet says, let no soldier fly that hath not the name of valor, or something very like it. I do to this day maintain that, against the prospect of confronting Florence with pistols at dawn—that is to say, a woman—in a matter of honor, even in _France_ —: surely the code of a gentleman _requires_ that one must flee, mustn't one? I could hardly have stayed to _shoot_ the poor girl—or, even to be shot by her, which I suspect, having had occasion to see Florence wield a pistol, might have been somewhat more probable—however enraged she may have been. Hence: the donkey. Or—mule, I suppose, as Jeeves continues to remind me.

But I find that I am making rather a hash of telling of the adventure to which the donkey was, as they say, merely the catharsis. Do I mean catharsis? I never can keep all those catharses and climaxes and apexes and other assorted ecstatic moments those Greek chaps were always on about untangled; which precise whatsit might happen to be occurring at whichever moment has always seemed to me jolly difficult to put a finger upon, if you follow my thrust. Jeeves has tried several times to impress the difference between them upon me, but always leaves me rather more turned about than before. 

We first came to France on the tail of Anatole, my aunt Dahlia's most superior exponent of the culinary arts, who had originally returned to the land of his birth on the trail of some particularly exquisite vintage which he had tasted, Dahlia said, at a third-rate restaurant in the East End on holiday.  

"Though what business such a locale might have of serving such a wine, I haven't the first notion," huffed that paragon of aunts, " _Eels_ , I ask you." 

When I later relayed our instructions to Jeeves, I here was forced to confess, "—though, it now occurs to me, I never did entirely identify the connection of Anatole's holiday in London to an eel." 

Jeeves coughed gently. "If I might suggest it, sir, I expect that Anatole had the good fortune to dine at a restaurant that, while specializing in the preparation of members of the order _Anguilliformes_ , also is in possession of an uncommonly good wine cellar." 

"The order Anguilliformes?" I echoed, feeling rather perplexed. 

"Eels, sir," said Jeeves, "jellied, and in pies," and gently placed a brandy and soda into the young master's palm, so as to be to hand for the ensuing sublimation of confusion into nausea. 

I gulped, restoratively. "Well, how on earth _did_ he have such good fortune?" I asked. "Surely some dingy little hole in _the East End_ , of all places, specializing in—" I shuddered— " _eels_ couldn't serve Anatole a wine so fine he felt the need to go to France to procure it!" 

"If you'll pardon me for suggesting it, sir," Jeeves says, "having recommended to Anatole the establishment in question, I can assure you that their menu might be—rather more comprehensive than you might expect. The proprietress, you see, is herself a Frenchwoman, and the cousin of the sister-in-law of a vintner of some repute." 

"Oh, I see," I said, though I didn't. 

In fact, the implication of the vintner whose brother's wife was cousin to some poor Gallic exile living down-and-out in London, _jellying eels_ , did not fully impress itself upon me until I realized, somewhere on the train through the rattling French countryside, that to collect my aunt's cook I was, in fact, going to have to _locate_ this individual, which was a rather daunting prospect until Jeeves informed me that he had done it for me, which made it immediately seem much less thorny a problem. The vintner in question proved to be a stout, bad-tempered fellow in his fifties who ran a wine estate outside Amboise—"the final home of Leonardo da Vinci," Jeeves informed me, "Ne pas prévoir c'est déjà gémir"; to which I readily agreed, "Yes, of course, I've often thought so"—who had no English and had still less time for either of us, until Jeeves coughed, quite delicately, and then pressed upon him a small collection of francs, after which he had, at least, enough time to direct us to his assistant. This fellow, in turn—a handsome and vastly more agreeable young man of about my age—also spoke very little English, but Jeeves's French is rather better than mine, and so I spent quite an agreeable half-hour sampling some of the produce of the estate while Jeeves and the vintner's assistant conducted some kind of elaborate negotiation to which I paid very little attention, the end result of which was that we were directed to convey ourselves from _that_ wine estate to a _different_ wine estate, some eleven miles further on, which distance we might walk or, should we prefer it, be conveyed thence in the wagon of a local innkeeper, which was at that precise moment being loaded with the week's stock of refreshment. 

We did, in fact, prefer it.

The innkeeper's son—a stout young man with even less English than the vintner and, frankly, not an overabundance of French—operated the wagon with a lackadaisical hand, and so we were deposited, somewhat shaken, in the courtyard of a charmingly rustic inn, bedecked in apple blossoms, from whence there appeared to be no available transportation of any sort. However, we were by that point a mere four miles from the estate identified by the vintner's assistant, and the interior of the inn proved to be far more rustic and significantly less charming than the exterior, so we set forth under our own power to locate the renegade Anatole. And we found him, a rather warm and sticky hour later, standing at the gate to the wine estate and engaged upon vigorous debate with an extremely pretty girl of an unspecified pastoral persuasion, who was holding a massive donkey by a lead and looking profoundly annoyed.

I imagine that the reader will be astonished to learn this, but Anatole did not greet us with the affection one might expect us to merit, as emissaries of his adoptive homeland and generous mistress. "Oh!" he said, looking exceptionally cross; and then launched into a volley of French that was abusive enough that even I more or less understood it, except for _un outil bâtard des oppresseurs_ , which I had rather a time trying to untangle, but did not sound flattering in the least. Even the girl looked scandalized. This young lady proved to be called Héloïse, and we quickly discovered that she was present upon the estate for the express purpose of returning to Anatole the donkey—"Mule, sir," Jeeves corrected—which I gathered he had presented to her as some sort of engagement gift.

"Oh, I say," I said. "Are you to be married? Congratulations!"

" _Non_ ," said Héloïse, shoving the donkey's lead into Anatole's hand and then forcing his fingers closed about it, "I am _not_ to be married, to _anyone_ , and I will thank you to keep your ass to yourself."

Jeeves coughed. "Your English is quite good, Mademoiselle—"

"Gagne. And you may call me Héloïse, or Gagne— _mademoiselle_ indeed, no." She sniffed. "I am my own mistress. And who are you, besides _un outil bâtard des oppresseurs_?" 

"My name is Jeeves, Made—Mi—er, Gagne, and if Anatole does not wish to return with us at this time, I should be most grateful if you could direct us to a suitable inn."

She _hmph_ ed. "Did you not just come from L'auberge du Coq?"

"Ah—we did, but," Jeeves said, and then switched back into French. Some time later, the girl turned back towards me, and then gave me a frankly alarming look that began in the vicinity of my chin, traveled downwards precipitously, and then migrated both slowly and appraisingly back up towards my face. The overall effect of this survey was much the same as I imagine it must be to be a haddock, thus regarded, while reclining upon ice at the fishmonger's: cold, gutted, and nebulously alarmed about one's future prospects. Generally when a girl regards me with such a measuring eye I tend to find it alarming because I suspect she is assessing for the purposes of matrimony. In the case of Héloïse Gagne, my ill-formed concerns did not appear tread upon these simple, yet familiar, lines; I was glad enough to not be fitted for the spats and tails, but that did leave the rather ominous question of for what I was, in fact, being fitted.

Her inspection of young Bertram completed, Héloïse did concede to escort us along the first two miles towards Montrichard proper. Anatole, for his part, was still refusing to accompany us anywhere, but had accepted Jeeves's suggestion that he lend the donkey to us for a small nominal fee, its gift having been so roundly rebuffed by the girl. Héloïse's primary role in the neighborhood was, apparently, as the keeper of a number of poorly-behaved goats on a neighboring farm, from the milk of which she made several extremely well-regarded local cheeses. The goats, I gathered, were enjoying their midday constitutional siesta, and she was thus temporarily to explore other occupations, which in this case meant crushing Anatole's hopes and dreams, assisting us in tying our valises to the back of the donkey with the aid of a length of twine she had retrieved from her apron pocket, and then showing us down to a better-maintained sort of a road, dragging the donkey along. ("Mule, sir," Jeeves corrected.) On our ramble, this beast tried to kick me several times, made a series of extremely unattractive noises, and only at last seemed to accept its lot when Héloïse spoke to it quite sternly in its native tongue.

"But what are we going to do about Anatole?" I asked Jeeves, rather despairing, when we at last, very late in the day, found ourselves at La Palourde et Gousse—which, much like L'auberge Coq, was picturesque to the point of causing Jeeves to go somewhat green and wobbly, like an ill-preserved ham. He had deigned to permit me a pint or two of the local cider, but advised most strongly against attempting to pay my addresses to any of the more absorbent fare. "I suppose we might stay here for a night or two, and try to persuade Anatole, to—to address ourselves to his feudal spirit, perhaps—"

"If you'll pardon me for saying it, sir," Jeeves said, and I waved a hand, "I'm not entirely certain whether the feudal spirit is up to a competition with Mademoiselle Gagne," which was an opinion in which I, sadly, was forced to concur.

"I must say, she is a very good-looking girl, isn't she," I said, leaning close. This accolade did seem rather weak tea for such a young woman: with a strong, upright bearing; masses of dark curls that glinted red where they caught the sunlight; precisely the sorts of dips and rises that one is taught to expect of the species; and the sort of brilliant eyes that Rosie M. Banks might have justifiably described as inky pools: very dark, very wide, and with a suggestion of the same sort of, either, drowning treachery, or a desperately unpleasant day at school.

Jeeves inclined his head. "A most radiant, exquisite and unmatchable beauty, sir," he supplied.

"Oh, yes, rather," I agreed, having thought that Jeeves had once again hit the nail, &c across the table, Jeeves sipped his cider. "But if he's got it into his head to marry her—I dare say he won't be able to convince _her_."

Jeeves paused. "I'd come to much the same conclusion," he said, "but I confess myself curious as to—"

"Bertie Wooster? Why—it is you!" I heard, and as my soul slowly filled with a cold, creeping dread, I turned; only to find myself facing the still more terrifying visage of Lady Florence Craye, in sturdy shoes and an unadorned straw hat.

To fully understand my feelings upon this occasion, I suspect it may be necessary to explain that upon my last meeting with Florence, there had occurred an incident involving her godmother's Christmas goose and a small family of domesticated ferrets, for which I was not, strictly speaking, _responsible_ , yet in which I had, indubitably, been involved. While the event had had the happy consequence of ending our most recent bout of engagement, it had not left me in such lights with Florence as to expect from her much of anything, upon our next meeting, besides a swift kick. This, however, did not appear to be forthcoming. Indeed, as I stood with rather less grace than, I fancy, is my usual, she was beaming at me with such warm enthusiasm that my blood ran cold, suspecting that, in fact, I might be due for a rather more affectionate reunion than I desired.

"I say, Bertie, I had no notion of seeing _you_ here," she said, in a confiding tone, as I shook her hand. "Hallo, Jeeves"; to which Jeeves returned a small bow, before tactfully removing himself from our table, simultaneously providing to Florence the chair that was, inarguably, her due, and leaving me regrettably without the support of clinging to his bulwark, as it were. Thankfully, he did not, as I would have been tempted, in such a situation, shimmer entirely away, but merely relocated said bulwark to the bar, where it remained, if not precisely in clinging range, certainly within a comforting proximity. "What on earth can have brought you all the way to Montrichard? It seems rather outside your usual habitat—London, New York, Cannes, et cetera. Have you developed an interest in animal husbandry?"

"Have I—oh, no," I said, and then tittered. I am not proud of the tittering, I confess, but clinging to a fourth half-empty glass of cider in a rustic tavern, besieged on all sides by Lady Florences and the French, I suspect very few gentlemen would truly show to advantage. "I, that is—Anatole, my Aunt Dahlia's cook, has been—well, he's done a runner, essentially, and we were sent to find him, and now he's courting a dairymaid, and refuses to come home, and Jeeves and I were just discussing how best to remove him, as it were, but—"

"Well, you certainly can't stay _here_ ," Florence said, squaring her shoulders. "We did, before Constance had got the roof properly patched, and I got into an argument with the most spotty-faced, trumped-up rustic you can possibly imagine, and had to display my pistols—"

"Pistols?" I echoed, alarmed.

"—well, of course, Bertie, you can hardly expect us to come out here undefended, and then Olive took a feverish cold that lasted a month and left her hardly able to write, poor thing—they don't air the beds properly, _dreadfully_ damp, and aside from their cheese, which they don't even make themselves, but buy from some old hag who keeps goats out by—ah, _Merci, Henri_ ," as the landlord came with a large, paper-wrapped parcel, which he deposited unceremoniously upon our table with a _thunk_. "Bertie, you simply _must_ come and stay with us at the castle—and we've hired the only decent cook in the _canton_."

"The—er, the castle?"

"Oh, yes!" Florence laughed. "You won't _believe_ the place— _quite_ atmospheric, perfect for our purposes, really—it was crumbling, of course, and Connie bought it for a song, but we've more or less got a few rooms nearly habitable, by now."

This did not sound tremendously promising, but I found myself rather dispirited by the idea of damp bedlinen, after an already dispiriting day, and—upon a brief glance with which to consult with Jeeves's eyebrows, I said, "Yes—I say, Florence, this is awfully good of you"; but she waved this praise away, pushing up to her feet.

"I could hardly leave such an old friend in the hands of this establishment," she said cheerfully, ignoring the murderous glower of the landlord, who, having presented Florence with her cheese, had retreated behind the bar.

While Jeeves addressed this gentleman with sufficient francs to pay our bill, I escorted Florence out into the courtyard. It would've required me to be more of a lunk than I've ever met to allow Florence to carry her own cheese, in such a situation, and so, in keeping with the Code of the Woosters, I there attempted to attach said cheese to the back of the donkey. Neither the donkey nor the cheese appeared to have much appreciation for my attempts, but, when Jeeves emerged, he was able to remedy the situation with better than tolerable results.

"Er," I said, as we walked alongside the donkey, where I, at least, felt an alarming degree of envy over Florence's sturdy shoes and sunhat. "This 'Constance,' aforementioned—"

"Oh, do you not know Connie?" Florence's eyes widened, under her straw hat. "I rather thought everyone knew the Alborns."

I blanched. "Constance _Alborn_?" The Honorable, the eldest daughter of Lady Alborn, who was a friend of my Aunt Agatha's, and possibly a yet greater curse upon nephews everywhere: she had had her own nephew, Niles Bagley-Wescott, sent to Australia following a perfectly harmless bit of fun after the Boat Race, even though that statue'd been hideous anyway, and even the Fellows had toasted its demise. 

"Oh, you _do_ know her!" Florence beamed. "She's _quite_ the artist, you know—it was all her idea to come out here, find a bit of peace and quiet to do our work, well away from the hubbub and bustle. City life, you know! One can hardly think, with all that _socializing_."

"Er," I said, "yes." 

The last time I'd met Miss Alborn, I'd been perhaps fifteen: she was, at the time, already a determined spinster: a tall, good-looking girl with a noble nose and a streak of steel-grey running through the front of her black hair; a loud, deceptively jolly laugh; and absolutely no tolerance for any sort of larkiness whatsoever. I'd found her petrifying, at the time, and wasn't overly sanguine about not finding her so in the present: _Now,_ that _, Bertie_ , I still remember my Aunt Agatha saying, at the time, _is the sort of young lady I should like you to marry_ : a prospect which I might very well credit with putting me off the idea all together.

The castle to which Florence then escorted us was, indeed, in alarmingly poor shape. While no bits of it that I could see had, speaking precisely, _collapsed_ , a significant number of them were listing precipitously, and the grounds displayed evidence of having had, at some point in the past, a number of fences and assorted other buildings that had passed, otherwise, into memory: the most striking of these was a lopsided wooden structure which Florence assured us was a barn, but rather looked like one is inclined to feel after a particularly jolly night at the Drones. 

"Penny—Miss Hurdle, that is," Florence was explaining, "has an especial interest in the use of alternative fibers in her weaving, and has lately made the acquaintance of—"

At this point, a sound rent the honey-golden peace of the afternoon. Well, I say "a sound," but this description is wholly inadequate to the eruption as it occurred: a sort of high-pitched wail, not unlike the noise produced by the smallest of the lower boys during the first night's ghost story; and yet somehow so saturated with pure, distilled fury as to strike fear into the heart of even the stoutest of knights upon hearing it; and while the Woosters are an old and respectable family, it has been quite some time since we were, precisely, of an expressly heroic persuasion. To follow, this hellish howling transformed somehow at its middle into a sort of infernal bleating: as though the very goats of hell were massing at the edges of Montrichard, from which to besiege the village. I had no notion what might produce such a sound, all I knew was: it screamed. It screamed, and in reply I suspect that I might, perhaps, have screamed a bit myself: the alternative was that Florence was the one who screamed; but she appeared to be entirely unmoved by whatever unearthly beast might produce such infernal yowls; merely tilting her head and looking very faintly annoyed.

When the cacophony at last drew to a close, Florence finished, "—an alpaca breeder. Hullo, Lou. Might I introduce you to my friend Bertie Wooster? He's come to stay a few days in the Red Bedroom. Bertie, Miss Lourdes de la Cruz, who is visiting from Peru." 

I turned—sparing only the smallest of thoughts as to what might cause a bedroom to become red, in such an establishment—and met the very dark, very humorous eyes of a very tall and square-shouldered young lady with a thick head of black hair, cut into a wild bob and swept back in no particular order whatsoever. She wasn't pretty, precisely, but rather the sort of young lady with whom one imagined one might be _comfortable_ , if not, precisely speaking, immediately: I stuck out my hand, fumbling my way through some sort of how-do-you-dos, et cetera, and then following Miss de la Cruz and Florence into the castle.

As it turned out, my concerns about the Red Bedroom were largely unfounded: it was a large, airy bedroom with a red patchwork coverlet, and nothing else about it was particularly alarming; though it was not, I confess, perfectly clean, it is not in the nature of the Woosters to be precious about such trivialities, especially not when Jeeves is about to do it for us. 

"I gather that the young ladies have found themselves in a not insignificant amount of difficulty with regard to household staff," Jeeves explained, as he first thoroughly dusted the top drawer in the chest of drawers, and then filled it with a number of my shirts. "They have a cook, Édith, and with her came Hélène, the more experienced of the two maids. I understand that Édith is a local woman, who left her previous employment with the local squire under inauspicious circumstances, and has accepted more sympathetic employment with Miss Alborn as, in a sense, a sort of refuge."

"More sympathetic employment?" I asked; and Jeeves inclined his head.

"With her came Hélène, the more experienced of the two maids," he repeated; and I said, "Oh, I see," mendaciously.

"But overall, I have been given to understand that to act as a domestic servant to a household consisting of—if you will forgive the liberty—seven somewhat eccentric English expatriates, an equally eccentric visitor from Peru, and a half-dozen South American camelids—"

"Camelids?" I asked.

"The animals currently residing in the outbuilding," he clarified. "Alpacas. Especially prized for their wool, which has a characteristic roughness and halo that lends a distinctive texture to objects made from it—I understand that Miss Alborn is especially interested in the softness that can be achieved with alpaca wool, at a lower cost than one might have to spend for sheep's wool. Miss de la Cruz, for her part, is particularly enamored of them as living creatures and, in a sense, companions, and Miss Alborn is relying upon her expertise and rapport with the animals for an experiment in introducing them beyond their native milieu."

"Their native milieu," I repeated; and then sat bolt upright. "Jeeves, that's it!"

"Sir?"

"Miss de la Cruz's rapport with the, er—"

"Alpacas, sir."

"Yes, alpacas," I agreed. "Because that's what helps them—acclimathingy. The alpacas."

"Acclimate?"

"That's the one," I agreed. "And here they are, far from their native lands in Bolivia or—Argentina—"

"Peru, sir."

"—Peru, then." I waved a hand. "But the alpacas have a shot of getting on here, don't they, because Miss de la Cruz is with them, and she's fond of them. So all we need is—is someone who is fond of Anatole, to help encourage him back to England." I considered this briefly. "Well, my Aunt Dahlia is dreadfully fond of him. For that matter, I'm terrifically fond of him. The chap's got quite a way with a cutlet."

"If you'll pardon me for mentioning it, sir—"

"No, no, you needn't." I sighed. "It's hardly the same, is it?"

"Indeed, sir."

We pondered the problem of Anatole, Miss de la Cruz, and the alpacas. That is to say, I pondered the problem, and Jeeves pondered my luggage, most likely while simultaneously pondering the perambulations of the stock market and the latest rail accident and, idly, the problem of Anatole, Miss de la Cruz, and the alpacas. Jeeves, being a marvelous intellect, is entirely capable of considering such things while simultaneously unpacking one's valise, while I, in truth, am not really capable of either, but I did r. up my s. and have a go at it, as it were: an enterprise resulting primarily in a slight headache. Jeeves, meanwhile, having disinterred such articles from said as he found sufficient and necessary for my dressing for dinner, turned back with the slightest of coughs and then said, "Sir, if I might suggest?"

I consented that he might suggest, and so dressed. 

"Perhaps we might consider Héloïse," I said, during a lull in this procedure.

"Sir?"

"Miss de la Cruz's rapport with the alpacas," I explained. "If Anatole is staying here for the possibility of developing a rapport with Héloïse..."

Jeeves coughed delicately, and then lifted my jacket. "I suspect, sir, that Anatole's desired rapport with that young person bears little in common with Miss de la Cruz's rapport with her alpacas."

"Well, no," I said, sliding my arms into it. "Though I rather got the impression that Héloïse was just as fed up with socializing with Anatole as all the girls in the castle are with socializing in London, what?"

"Yes, sir," Jeeves said. " _Very_ like."

It was uttered in a tone that—I could tell—was _intended_ to convey meaning, but didn't, at least not to me.

"Very like what?" I asked.

He coughed. "The young ladies in the castle, sir," he suggested; and I said, " _Oh_ ," in tones of dawning comprehension, though actually I still hadn't the first notion of what he was on about. "Rather—rather inclined to, er," I said; hoping he might fill in the _er_ for me.

" _Precisely_ , sir," Jeeves said. "Quite an independent-minded group of young ladies."

"Yes, that's just what I was thinking," I agreed, rather anxiously. "Miss—Miss de la Cruz certainly does seem independent-minded. And Lady Florence—a rather, erm—"

"A scholarly young lady," Jeeves suggested.

"Well, yes, of course, she always has been," I said, and then shifted. "Though why she should have to come out here to be scholarly—"

Jeeves coughed again. "I believe, sir, that she came out here for the prospect of being scholarly with _other scholarly young ladies_."

"Oh, that's right," I said. "There's a historian, isn't there? And a poet. Miss Hurdle?"

"Miss Hurdle is the weaver, who is—er, of a more artistic persuasion. She and Miss Alborn, as I understand it, are artistic together, Miss Alborn being a sculptor in addition to our hostess. The poet I believe is Miss Beckett," Jeeves says, "who I understand to—well."

"Be quite scholarly with Lady Florence?" I suggested; and he tilted his head.

"I think it more accurate to say that Miss Beckett _desires_ to be scholarly with Lady Florence," he said thoughtfully. "And Miss Pendlebury, the painter, desires to be artistic with Miss Beckett."

"Well, that's the joy of poetry, isn't it? Allows one to be scholarly and artistic at the same time.

Jeeves paused. "Indeed, sir."

"Or, so I understand. I've never much partaken of poetry, myself."

A complicated expression rippled across Jeeves's face. "No, sir," he said, "I don't imagine you would have."

I tilted my head, considering. "I say, Jeeves, for such a lot of women who've fled the blasted country to avoid any sort of 'socializing,' this is pretty ripe, isn't it? As many crossed wires as the London telephone exchange."

"If you'll forgive me for suggesting it, sir, rather more." He brushed my shoulders with his customary vigor, and then handed me my cufflinks. "As I understand the situation, Miss Alborn and Miss Hurdle have—quite a history of artistic collaboration, if you will; and Miss Hurdle is only just beginning to, er, collaborate with Miss de la Cruz, while Miss Beckett, Miss Pendlebury, Lady Florence, Miss Adley-Gibbens—"

"Good God," I said. "Mumps is here?"

"Yes, sir," he said, in a taut sort of a voice: I've known Mergatroyd Adley-Gibbens since she pushed me into a pond at a garden party when we were eight; absolute brick of a girl. Jeeves, however, does not approve, as Mumps has, in her adulthood, trod a path rather more revolutionary and bohemian than Jeeves, hidebound reactionary that he can be, can bring himself to tolerate. A few years back, she got me to provide her with the name of a tailor to fit her with a dinner jacket and trousers; it was rather a lark. But it's just as well that Mumps has, ever since her presentation, cheerfully set out to reduce any familial hopes that she might someday settle down and marry into a fine and slightly gritty powder: the usual sorts of scrapes I find myself in when girls are around would in all probably threaten life and limb were she to be involved, and I probably _would_ propose to her, if I thought she wouldn't thump me, and then Jeeves would leave and where would we be? As a matter of fact, I did ask her to marry me once, but we were twelve at the time. "But," Jeeves was continuing, "I understand that—while Miss de la Cruz and the older ladies in residence have arrived at a sort of understanding—the problem lies in that the quartet of Miss Adley-Gibbons, Lady Florence, Miss Beckett, and Miss Pendlebury are each of them desirous of... of a scholarly connection with a young lady who, herself, desires such a connection with another—all except for Miss Adley-Gibbens, who I understand to have developed a—a collaborative urge for the final young lady, a Miss Cecilia Beacham."

I frowned. "Beacham... I don't think I know her."

"An American, sir," he explained. "Having recently completed a degree at Girton, and working on a historical treatise on the _châtelaine_ in the seventeenth century. I understand her and Lady Florence to move in much the same circles, in London, but for Miss Beacham to have found them rather too... lively, for her personal tastes."

"Oh, dear," I said.

"Yes, sir," he agreed.

"Well, I suppose the obvious solution would be just for them all to collaborate _together_ ," I said. "I don't know why scholars and artists do get so overwrought over who's quoting whom and whose figures are imitated on whose canvases—it does seem like the entire bally business would go tremendously more smoothly if they all just agreed that they were anyone's inkpots and paint-pans for anyone to dip a finger into—if you follow my allusion."

"Yes, sir," said Jeeves, sounding a little strangled.

"Do I mean an allusion?" I asked. "Or was that more a metaphor."

Jeeves hesitated. "I really couldn't say, sir."

It didn't particularly disturb my tranquility at the time, but I confess that, having been introduced to the complicated artistic and scholarly perambulations to which my hostesses and fellow guests were inclined, I did find myself, therefore, greeting the prospect of dinner with some trepidation. Miss Alborn, still as solid and stern-faced as I remembered, rather did set one's bosom a-quake, but perhaps Mumps was having a mellowing influence: Mumps greeted me with such a handshake that I grew slightly dizzy; and then she tossed a careless arm about me and made the introductions, as Florence had not yet come down; and Miss Alborn cheerfully shook my hand and reminded me that I'd once chucked a plum at her and then fallen into a lake. I knew Jane Pendlebury, a very slight girl with disheveled ginger hair and enormous spectacles, but not well, and I hadn't had the first notion that she fancied herself a painter. The American historian, Miss Beacham—"devoted to the vestal life," Mumps murmured in my ear—proved to be a very tall young lady with extremely large, vivid grey eyes and a tremendously commanding personality: I found myself drawn into conversation with her right from the off, despite having little to say on the subject of the 17th century somethingerother, and later realized I couldn't so much as say if I'd been introduced to any of the rest of the party. When I next was permitted to cast my attention elsewhere, we were just sitting down to the table: an informal arrangement, rather, with Miss Beacham addressing herself intently to Miss Hurdle at her other side, leaving me to Miss Beckett: a plain, freckled girl with a mousy brown bob and a laughing expression.

"Has anyone apologized to you?" she asked, pitched low. The corner of her mouth was curling, just. 

I suspect that, in response to this sally, I goggled. "Er, apologized?"

"For the food," she said, and then sat back for a rather harassed-looking maid to set before us each a bowl of—well, I gathered, as the meal progressed, that it was a soup, but at the time I was only aware of it as some sort of viscous material, roughly the color of pond-weeds, and with much the same flavor, I fancy. I rested my spoon, and regarded Miss Beckett; "Miss Abbott allows Miss Hurdle to set the menus, and Miss Hurdle," she explained, very quietly, "is a rather strict vegetarian." 

I set my spoon down. I had some experience with the breed, as another young lady of my experience, Madeline Bassett, suffers from a philosophical alignment with the principles of vegetarianism, though she herself is not a practitioner. She has, however, communicated this disease to more than one gentleman of my acquaintance, though they have, fortunately, by this point all recovered. "I see," I said; and the curl at the corner of her mouth bloomed into a wide, warm smile.

She turned back to her bowl, and took a sip of soup, so I followed her lead. It... wasn't bad, precisely, as long as you squinted up a bit so you didn't have to look at it too closely, and pressed the back of your palate closed so the flavor was not overpowering. Having tromped all over the fields of the Loire Valley, and on a rather warm day, and not having had luncheon, but only four ciders and rather a lot of wine, I was quite hungry indeed, so I took another spoonful, endeavoring to appreciate all the best bits of it while ignoring the way it felt in my mouth. 

"A small cadre of us," Miss Beckett said, "are considering mounting a minor rebellion, to man the barricades in insistence, at least, on the inclusion of a cheese."

"There's no cheese?" I said, heart sinking, which did indeed prove to be the case. Instead, as various conversations regarding philosophical thingummies and artistic whatsits fluttered about me, I dined upon a variety of flavors and textures on the theme of—to my best abilities of deduction—an early-spring field, that is to say: muddy, green, and populated by an overabundance of noxious weeds. The viscous dark green thing was followed by a wobbly light green thing, followed by a chewy greyish-brown thing, garnished with crunchy brown things, and topped with a sauce of a rather alarming shade of orange. The dessert course, at least, was identifiable. It was an apricot.

As I regarded this latest sally, fork in hand, Miss Beckett leaned in, and said, in a confiding tone, "You know, I was quite surprised, at first, that Connie and Pen agreed to let you stay. The tacit understanding of this arrangement was, rather, 'no men'—but of course, this was before Florence explained how things stood with you."

After the revelation about the cheese, I'd rather thought my heart hadn't further to sink, but at that, it did.

"I, er—." I paused. "I have—we're not engaged, you know," I offered, finally; and Miss Beckett threw back her head and laughed.

"Oh, you _are_ funny," she said, and then laughed again. "She'd never lower herself to a marriage of _that_ sort, we all know _that_. And she's brought her pistols with her, you know—if any man came about _trying_ to marry one of us, she'd see him right off."

"Why—yes." I bobbed my head a bit, feeling dreadfully out of my depth, and then laid my fork beside my apricot and offered, "Certainly I imagine you all would much rather—stay here, being scholarly together. Or—or artistic," I added, unsure in precisely which lights Miss Beckett saw her poetry.

"Oh, _very_ ," she said, with a bright, warm smile. "And you—of course such an elegant young gentleman as yourself—"

"The elegance is mostly Jeeves," I admitted, and then leaned closer. "I don't like to admit it where he can hear me, but he is really extraordinary, when it comes to my wardrobe—and everything else, really. Last year I did come home with what I thought was a perfectly marvelous driving cap—American, aubergine, with a little feather, _quite_ the thing I thought at the time, but then he got me out of a terrific scrape with Alma Essington and her father's rat-terriers and it seemed only the right thing to do, from then on, to stick with hats of his choosing. And I must confess he was right," I confided. "I would shudder, now, to remember having shown myself in such a thing."

She smiled. It was a very kind smile, this time, but just as bright and warm. "Well, two such avowed bachelors as you must find some way of getting on."

"Oh we do, rather," I agreed, pleased that she saw it just my way. "Miss Beckett—"

"Oh, please, do call me Olive," she said. " _One of the tribe_ , et cetera": and I paused.

I had not, up to this point, given much thought to the subtext of this conversation—if indeed subtext is the word that I want, for I had been so enjoying my chat with Miss Beckett—Olive—that it hadn't occurred to me that we might be having a different conversation all together. But at this moment, I was beginning to have an inkling that what Olive meant was not so much that Jeeves and I were _avowed bachelors_ , or—well, that too, but also that we were more— _of an eccentric persuasion_ , which—well, _eccentric_. What does anyone mean by _eccentricity_ , really? I certainly am eccentric, I looked it up in Jeeves's dictionary once and thought: _that's the ticket_ , and besides, I've always been given to believe eccentricity rather ran in the family. The situation in which I was left by this sally was, therefore, rather a puzzle: I could hardly counter Olive's assumption of my eccentricity on a factual basis, even if it wouldn't've been terrifically rude to do so, but it did mean, however, that she had categorized me and Jeeves rather more—more in the way of _uncles_ , perhaps, though such terminology does become a bit awkward when applied to a man conversing with a girl not two years younger than he. But as the evening progressed, I found that I, and Jeeves alongside me, was inducted under this uncle-ish banner of harmlessness, into not only Olive's proximate family, but, I gathered, to an extent into the young ladies' wider circle, which appeared to in fact include rather a lot of _other_ men who—that the girls regarded in the light of uncles, many of whom I knew a very little. I foresaw, therefore, that my next sally into Cambridge might be made awkward by more than the historical enmity between our Houses; I was, however, assured of receiving an exceptionally warm welcome in Bloomsbury.

"Jeeves," I said, when I at last retreated to my bedroom, stomach churning, though that was likely a result of the pond-weeds. "Do you, er—Lady Florence appears to have told—that is to say, Miss Beckett informed me—"

"Yes, sir," Jeeves agreed. 

"You know, then," I said; and he coughed delicately.

"Édith did make a reference, yes," he agreed; and helped me out of my jacket. 

I swallowed. "I say, Jeeves, this doesn't—that is to say, I know you've never much seemed to mind my eccentricity—"

"Not in the least," he agreed, in the very calmest of tones; and some of the nervous tension drained out of my spine. He saw, of course. "If I might suggest it, sir," he offered, "this development may, in fact, prove to be somewhat... to the purpose. In certain regards."

He turned, hanging up my trousers, as I slid between the covers.

"I shan't be finding myself inadvertently engaged the next time I go to a dinner-party, you mean."

"Not in any conventional sense, sir, no," he agreed; and I went to sleep feeling vastly relieved, and more or less able to put the matter out of my mind.

In the morning, I woke to birds twittering, golden sunlight on my face, and an idea.

"Jeeves," I said. "The way I see it, this whole tangle with Anatole comes down to Héloïse. Doesn't it."

"Hm." Jeeves handed me my tea. "That seems rather putting quite a lot of weight on a single young person."

"No, no." I accepted the proffered cup: made by Jeeves and not Édith; my toes curled deliciously in my odd patchwork bed. "I don't mean to _blame_ her, of course, but if we could convince her to go to England... accept a position with Aunt Dahlia, or some such thing—"

He coughed, delicately. "I think it extremely unlikely, sir."

"Yes, I suppose so," I agreed, "she didn't seem overly fond of any of us, did she"; and then sighed.

Jeeves coughed again. "If you'll forgive me the liberty, sir, there is another matter."

I looked up. "Oh yes?"

"Yes, sir. The cheese."

"The cheese," I repeated, mystified.

"Yes, sir. As Miss Beckett informed you yesterday evening, the menu has been a small source of consternation to—most particularly—Miss Beckett, Miss Beacham, and Miss Adley-Gibbens." 

I snorted. "Yes, well, if Mumps is involved, I should very much like to see what Miss Hurdle intends to do about it—she'll have her on the mat by tea-time, I should imagine."

"While I understand, and in fact share, your respect for Miss Adley-Gibbens's martial skills, in this particular case, Miss Beckett, Miss Beacham, and Miss Adley-Gibbens have not yet managed to achieve the upper hand in their _contre-temps_ with Miss Hurdle, and for so long as we are resident in these environs, you, too, must suffer similarly."

"Pond-weed soup," I said.

"Precisely, sir. But I think that—with, perhaps, a very small outlay of funds—we might yet prevail, if you should choose to cast your lot alongside Miss Beckett, Miss Beacham, and Miss Adley-Gibbens, in their advocation for the presence of a cheese at table."

"The _cheese_ ," I said, enlightened.

"Indeed, sir," Jeeves agreed, and relieved me of my empty tea cup.

After my morning ablutions, I found it was, yet, quite early: the absence of curtains in the castle having roused me at a far earlier hour than that to which I am accustomed. Indeed, though it was late May, and the day before had in fact been quite powerfully warm, I found that, as Jeeves and I sweet roam'd from field to field, or something very like, the morning air had a certain bite to it, the sun yet hovering rather low above the hills, and little wisps mist clinging, still, to the greenery. I confess, being as I am generally unacquainted with the glories of the dawn, et cetera, I found myself both perplexed and repulsed by my first encounter with it. The birds alone! Whatever induced the poet to describe them as "showering rains of melody," I cannot imagine. Their songs, if one could even consider them such, resembled instead to me nothing so much as the howling of the souls of the damned.

"If you would permit me, sir," said Jeeves, very quietly, as we approached the gate of the Gagne farm. I waved him ahead of me, and so it was Jeeves who took the lead in addressing Héloïse, when, upon catching sight of us, she loped down to the gate.

I believe I have mentioned that I have never been, really, much of a scholar, and my French has declined somewhat since the days when my governess, the petrifying Miss Cramp, had whacked my knuckles every time I confused a _bise_ and _baise_ or some other such nonsense; so in such matters I have very few qualms about letting Jeeves take the lead. So, as he addressed himself to Miss Gagne I largely absented my attention, which proved wise, as it was soon occupied by the unwanted affections of a goat. This animal, having initially wandered over seeking its mistress, then losing interest once she rebuffed its salutes, did not take long to set its sights on me: first nosing at my coat in a manner which I found, in fact, rather charming; then receiving a few pats to its head with an attitude of complacent acceptance; and then, once these activities began, apparently, to pall, beginning to demonstrate an unwonted degree of interest in my coat-tails. Fortunately, at this point, Jeeves came over from his conversation with Héloïse to rescue my suit—and, as a side effect, me—from the beast's ministrations, a large paper-wrapped packet under one arm, another held delicately in his hand. Héloïse, after first taking a moment to slip into a heavy brown jumper, went to wrestle my new acquaintance into a sort of a halter and lead.

"She's bringing the goat?" I asked.

"Indeed, sir." Jeeves shifted the parcel to the other arm. "I suggested to Gagne that the ladies at the castle might be more amenable to taking a contract with her for the providing of dairy products if they had some evidence of her animals' health and excellent treatment."

I nodded at the parcel. "And if they tasted her cheese," I guessed; and he inclined his head. Then he said something about—about russets, or René, or—rent it? ren net? Anyway, whatever it was, I gathered it had something to do with cheese-making, and Héloïse promptly dived in, and the conversation quickly slid back into French. Up the next hill, the goat _baa_ 'ed at me; I quite agreed.

When we at last arrived back at the castle, Mumps and Miss Beckett—Olive—were hard at work on the fence, while behind them, Miss de la Cruz and Miss Hurdle were having a rather intense-looking conversation while regarding the alpacas. When we got to the gate, however, all such activity came, slowly, yet inevitably, to a silent, ponderous halt. 

At first I supposed that our sudden appearance, carrying two packets of cheese and leading a goat by a lead, rather _would_ be surprising. It was Mumps who recovered first, loping up to the gate to greet us and then shake Héloïse's hand. Miss Pendlebury appeared then, as though from nowhere; and Miss Alborn very swiftly followed. Miss Beacham was not in evidence—scribbling away in her garrett, one presumed.

"Why, how clever," Mumps was saying, her shoulders angled towards Héloïse, eyes wide. "We were _just_ discussing how _desperately_ we were yearning for some cheese—weren't we, Penny?"

Miss Hurdle made a noise somewhere between a cough and a titter, and then—as Mumps took the cheeses and Olive and Florence were addressing themselves to the goat on its lead—said, "Yes—quite, Mademoiselle—er—"

"Héloïse Gagne," Héloïse said, "I detest _mademoiselle_ , no?"; but any sting that such an utterance might have carried was promptly washed away as Héloïse gave Miss Hurdle a dazzling smile, tossing her head so that her hair cascaded back over a shoulder in a dark, glossy mass, and the field before castle went very, very quiet. 

A very small, niggling sort of suspicion that had been lingering somewhere at the back of my mind now burst into full-fledged prismatic focus. My hand flew out, I confess, and caught in a most undignified fashion at the edge of Jeeves's sleeve: I was suddenly breathlessly certain that if he were to speak—if either of us were to speak—it would ruin it entirely. The goat did not share my compunctions: it lifted its face to its mistress, ignoring the stunned, flattened expressions of her newfound court, and then bleated indignantly.

"A very handsome animal," said Miss de la Cruz, suddenly pulling herself up. "You both must come and meet our alpacas—mustn't she, Pen?"

"Yes, quite," said Miss Hurdle, sounding a little faint. 

"And a mule," Miss Pendlebury offered, "we are currently also in possession of—"

"In my country," Miss de la Cruz said, looping her arm through Héloïse's, "goats and alpacas make excellent companions. And mules."

"I am not familiar with—what is alpacas?" Héloïse asked, and rested her right hand over Miss de la Cruz's, as Miss de la Cruz went a brilliant sort of scarlet. 

"Er— _apparenté aux chameaux_ ," Olive said, falling into step beside them, " _comme..._ " 

" _Comme un petit mouton au long cou_ ," Mumps offered, trotting after them, a cheese under each arm.

"Really, they're more like goats in many ways," Florence called, scrambling to keep up. "You'll like them enormously!"

All six young ladies, along with our hostesses, thus vanished into the barn, leaving me and Jeeves to regard one another, slightly startled. Or, well, I was startled; very little has the power to surprise or discombobulate Jeeves, who had the calmly satisfied look he tends towards when a plan has worked out just the way he expected.

"I say, Jeeves," I ventured, and then stopped, feeling rather as though I'd been laid flat by the passing blow of a giant. "Was that—you knew that was going to happen!"

"I rather suspected it might, yes," Jeeves said, inclining his head very slightly. "As you yourself have observed, Héloïse Gagne is indeed a most attractive young lady."

I straightened, saying, "But when she leaves—"; but Jeeves coughed very delicately, and I subsided. "She won't leave, will she," I guessed.

"I think, sir, that the matter is not so much whether or not she _leaves_ , which she logically must—the rest of her herd, of course, is still penned up on her land—but whether she then _returns_ , which I feel confident she will. She seems to have made quite a hit with the young ladies of the castle—and Miss de la Cruz was entirely correct, of course, in suggesting that the addition of a number of goats to their herd will not in any way diminish the happiness of the alpacas. In fact, raising goats and alpacas together is customary in many regions of the New World, a fact which I believe we can count on Miss de la Cruz using very much to everyone's advantage."

"And the addition of—er," I said, and then stopped.

"Of—if you'll pardon the metaphor—Miss Gagne to the herd of young ladies in residence at the castle? I suspect that _that_ will not do anything to diminish the happiness of the young ladies." 

At this point, Jeeves met my eye, and I felt my face grow rather hot, as I at last withdrew my hand.

"I, er, oh—bally," I said, and then subsided.

Jeeves coughed delicately. "If I might mention it," he said. "This is only a partial solution to the problem of Anatole."

I confess that, having risen early and then walked a very long way for the purposes of procuring a goat, two cheeses, and an exquisitely beautiful French dairymaid, I had rather forgotten about Anatole. "Oh, blast it," I said, glum again. "He'll be around again after her, won't he? _And_ his mule."

"Yes, I imagine he will," Jeeves said, "but in any contest for Miss Gagne's attention, I imagine there will be very little meaningful competition between one overly persistent man, and a castle full of engaging young ladies."

"Yes, _quite_ ," I said, for once understanding him perfectly. 

"Besides." Jeeves coughed, and then held the door for me so that I might sidle past him, as he ducked his head and murmured, "I understand that Lady Florence is quite an excellent shot."

Thus reassured, I found myself quite able to face luncheon, and indeed supper, in a more sturdily braced frame of mind. Miss Gagne stayed for the former, having briefly left her goat amid the comforting bulks of its new alpaca companions, and then departed—with the goat—to lead the rest of her establishment out upon the fields, or whatever it was that one did with goats after midday.

The rest of us, meanwhile, enormously enjoyed the addition of cheese—and very fine cheese, at that—to our midday repast. There were, according to Jeeves's excellent planning and forethought, two different cheeses acquired: one a very soft, mild substance with a tendency to crumble; and the other more pungent and firmer, but in no regard less delicious. I found that both together lent a sort of golden, milky haze to the entirety of the meal: the brown bits seemed less overwhelmingly brown, and the crunchy bits less untenably crunchy; and I was able to face a variation on the previous evening's pond-weed soup, even, with something not wholly unlike equanimity. The overall effect of these invigorating additions was to suffuse the table with such a spirit of fellowship—or, well, maidenship, I suppose, by and large; but I've never been one to insist that a girl can't be a chum—that there was a great sort of _casting off_ , as it were, of titles and salutations: Miss Pendlebury took Miss Gagne's hand and looked deep into her eyes and insisted that they be, instead, _Jane_ and _Héloïse_ ; and as this little paw was clasped, indeed, to Jane's swelling bosom, Florence insisted on _Florence—or Flo, if you like_ with such amiability that I nearly fell off my chair. Lourdes and Connie ( _Connie!_ ) were just as engaging; I was hardly even surprised as Héloïse adapted the other girls' litany of _Pen—Penny—Pen_ for Miss Hurdle, who was flushed a quite flattering shade of rose and had ceased, entirely, to protest the addition of the cheese. By the time the dishes were cleared, Olive and Florence were engaged in a lively back-and-forth with Héloïse—almost entirely in English—on the subject of some book or another, written by a friend of—I was unclear, they all three seemed to know her quite well—apparently about the philosophy of the Amazons; while Mumps, for her part, was regarding Héloïse with her chin in her palm, elbow resting upon the table in the sort of informal fashion that would've sent my Aunt Agatha into strong hysterics. Only Miss Beacham and I remained, it seemed, immune: I found myself curiously unable to evaluate how such separateness ought to make me feel, but the truth of the matter was that it was, in a very great many regards, a relief.

"And you, er," I found myself saying to Miss Beacham, as we all, rather leisurely, trickled away from the table. "You don't seem to..."

She blinked at me, twice. "I don't seem to..."; and I realized, all at once, the error of my ways, for—after all—what I could possibly say? If _Miss Beacham_ hadn't noticed her every friend falling all over themselves to capture the—not inconsiderable, it must be admitted, even by me—attractions of a local dairymaid, then I found it difficult to imagine a scenario in which I could introduce her to this idea. _Resourceful girl, Héloïse_ , I might say, _Independent-minded_ ; _Oh, is she?_ Miss Beacham might reply, in her vague, disinterested fashion, and then either she might ask me to elaborate—a scenario which not even a Wooster could face with equanimity—or, more improbably, might in fact understand me perfectly—but no, surely not: surely if Miss Beacham were going to notice, she would've done so already: quite a sharp young lady, Miss Beacham, for all her excessive interest in history: far more likely that I would dither about and meander considerably far afield of the point before managing to at last sputter out, _Well, it's like this, Miss Beacham: they're all real evening girls, fond of the twilight hours._ And sooner or later I would run out of ways of to say it and have to go to Jeeves, and he would communicate the entire thing with his eyebrows, and then _Oh, well then_ , Miss Beacham would say, _if_ Sapphism _is on the menu—!_ , and then I wouldn't have anyone to talk to at dinner.

"Your treatise," I said, rather desperately, "how's it, er, coming along?"

This sally did the trick. Miss Beacham straightened up, and began to talk about her _chateaux_ or _châtreuses_ or _chatières_ or whatever she kept bally well going on about, while the rest of the young ladies more or less evaporated, for whatever singular entertainments they had planned for the afternoon.

Some time later, I repaired to my room, where Jeeves had for me a very stiff brandy and soda and a cool cloth, which he gently laid upon the young master's forehead: balm, as it were, to my tortured brow—if balm is what I mean? It wasn't much of a balm in the traditional sense, if by "balm" what is meant is that dreadful sticky stuff that one's Nurse insisted upon slathering all over one whenever one demonstrated the poor judgement of coming down with a chill: that is to say, it was a great deal less like a balm and more like a cool cloth, which, in truth, would be far more soothing to a tortured brow in the first place.

"I say, Jeeves," I offered, rather feebly, after some time had passed with the b. and s. and the c. c. and so forth, "I think I do rather see what you've intended, viz., the radiant Miss Gagne—but how, precisely, are we to translate that to conveying Anatole back to the welcoming bosom of my Aunt Dahlia?"

At this, Jeeves relieved me of my glass, and put in my paw a fresh one, very cold and very strong: I gulped. "I wonder," he asked, "if you'd noticed Miss Beacham's lack of interest in Miss Gagne."

I lifted the corner of the cloth to peer at him. "Oh, no, Jeeves," I bleated— _bleated_ , I say. _Bleated_. "Please don't tell me I've got to play matchmaker between the only two females in the castle who _don't_ appear to be interested in—and besides, I couldn't do it," I concluded. "Miss Beacham has devoted herself to the vestal life, whatever that means—but I gather it means that she has little interest in—in sharing her scholarly pursuits with girls or chaps or _anyone_ , from the way Mumps said it, on our first night"; and Jeeves inclined his head.

"Yes," he said. "So I too have been informed. But the issue is not so very much Miss Beacham, precisely, as it is... what one might term the architectural considerations of Miss Beacham, as they involve the other residents of the castle."

"Architectural considerations," I echoed.

"Yes, sir."

"Of Miss Beacham," I confirmed.

"Yes, sir."

"Is she a strut?" I asked, nettled; and Jeeves coughed again.

"No, sir," he said, "but if you'll pardon me for suggesting it, the addition of Gagne to the household has the potential to disturb—for the better, in this case—the misaligned connections among the young ladies. Miss Adley-Gibbons is very fond of Cecilia Beacham, and Lady Florence is very fond of Miss Adley-Gibbons—much as Miss Beckett is very fond of Lady Florence."

"And Miss Pendlebury of Miss Beckett," I said, beginning to twig to what Jeeves'd been on about, previously, with all this talk of artistic collaboration. If he'd just explained to me that they were desirous of slapping each other up in all sorts of amorous clinches—but no. I have not to this day ever heard Jeeves utter the phrase _amorous clinch_ , though at times one does wonder what it would sound like, rather. "But there remains," Jeeves continued, "some considerable need for..." He paused. "A final cue," he said, finally. "To jostle all the various players into their appropriate positions."

"Oh, very well, Jeeves," I sighed. "What am I to do?"

The mechanics of Jeeves's plan were, in point of fact, quite simple: I was to request that Miss Beacham bring her pages down to dinner, spend some time over drinks regarding these pages, pose an insightful question or two—Jeeves had provided me with a small list of potential sallies—and then carelessly, eloquently, as the other young ladies devoted their attention to Héloïse Gagne, I was to cast a glass of burgundy across said pages.

"She's going to murder me," I had said; and Jeeves had—worryingly—inclined his head. 

"I will be acting as butler, sir," he said, however, "and I fancy I can, in extremis, prevent any permanent harm from befalling you."

Which was how I found myself engaged in the unenviable task of conveying myself to Miss Beacham's garret—though, really, it was a large and airy compartment, albeit one on the uppermost floor, so "garret" hardly seems—at any rate, I conveyed myself to it, and asked, in tremulous and—to be perfectly frank—not tremendously convincing tones that she bring down to dinner a small section of her treatise for my eager review. While no sane person could truly believe that I had any interest whatsoever in _chatouillements_ , Miss Beacham's devotion to her subject far outweighed such considerations; she agreed, with apparent gratification. At the dinner hour, we gathered one and all, and Miss Beacham thrust said pages into my hand, already talking, while the other young ladies clustered around the piano. A considerable volume of giggling ensued; Jane set herself to a not incompetent—if unfortunately out of tune, on account of the instrument—rendition of "I Wanna Be Loved By You," with Pen and Connie—gosh—trading off the vocal line; I asked Miss Beacham whether she felt that the curation of historical records biased the modern observer towards a male point of view; Mumps snuck one daring arm about the waist of Héloïse, and then the other about Florence; Jeeves topped up my wine; and I, with some finagling, managed to tip this beverage across Miss Beacham's chapter; and the room came to a mortuary sort of silence, all at once.

"Oh, _Bertie_ ," gasped Mumps, relinquishing both Héloïse and Florence.

"I, er—" I laughed— "oh dear— _so_ dreadfully sorry—"

"My _work_ ," Miss Beacham said, sounding almost faint; and then the room burst into such a flurry of activity as I had, up to that precise moment, never seen. Miss Alborn whisked the hand-woven cloths—Miss Hurdle's early attempts—from several of the side tables; Miss de la Cruz yanked the pages direct from my hand and began to lay them across the rug; Miss Gagne was already retrieving from the pockets of her trousers two handkerchiefs to pat pages not covered by clothes and a selection of coins with which to hold them flat; Miss Pendlebury was darting for the writing table for paper while Mumps clattered up the stairs shouting about pencils, which Miss Beckett, in a trice, had handed about, even as Florence was still drawing herself up, eyes blazing.

" _Mister Wooster_ ," she said, in the iciest, most deadly tone of voice. "How _could_ you."

"A dreadful accident, what?" I beamed at her—according to Jeeves's instructions—though in truth, my heart was quivering somewhere in the general vicinity of my shoelaces, keeping company with my stomach. "I say, I am _terribly_ sorry—but surely it's all still—" I tapped my head, while nodding sagely.

( _Sagely?_ I had asked Jeeves, voice weak.

_Sagely, sir_ , he had confirmed.)

So sagely I nodded, as Miss Beacham clung white-faced to the edge of the mantle while the other women threw themselves completely into the work of patting wine from the curling edges of her pages, and Florence, drawn up before me like Athena or some other of those terrifically awe-inspiring martial Greeks of the female persuasion, and said:

"Bertie Wooster, you are—you are a _lunk_ , and an _imbecile_ , and—and a _terrible houseguest_!"

Mumps, clattering back down with her hands full of pencils, came to a hard stop in the doorway, her eyes wide.

"I say, Flo," I said, very nearly genuinely hurt, "It's just a bit of musty old history"; and she drew herself up still taller and still more terrifyingly and said, "I am _Lady Florence Craye_ , Mr. Wooster, and it is Miss Beacham's _work_."

"Oh, 'work,'" I said, and then laughed scornfully.

( _Scornfully?_ I had asked Jeeves, all a-quiver.

_Scornfully, sir_ , he had confirmed.)

So scornfully I laughed, and " _Florence_ ," breathed Mumps, from the doorway, and Florence advanced upon me. 

I say "advanced," but in fact this does very little justice to the attitude with which Florence approached me. Truly, the Trojans, seeing Patroclus at the front of the Myrmidons flowing from their ships—or is it Achilles who I mean? I never can recall, though I was as fine a scholar of the Greeks as any boy at school—could not have trembled half so much as I did, at the sight of Florence in full sail, bearing down upon me.

"Mr. Wooster," she said, very coldly and very quietly, "I believe you know that I keep a very fine set of pistols in my bedroom. I will meet you at dawn. _Name your friends_."

"I, er." I looked, with some desperation, to Jeeves: the possibility of a duel had not entered into his calculations—or so I'd thought, but Jeeves merely coughed, and then said, "He will be seconded, milady, by Anatole Dubois, should that meet with your approval."

Florence tossed her head. "Anatole Dubois?" she said, lip curling. "Your aunt's _cook_?"

"I—yes," I said, nodding frantically. "Anatole Dubois—excellent chap, simply—excellent": but this last was addressed to Florence's not unintimidating back, as she scoffed— _scoffed_ , I say—while turning to join the other young ladies frantically drying and weighting and re-copying Miss Beacham's chapter as the historian herself clung, swooningly, to the mantle.

At my elbow, Jeeves coughed. "If I might suggest, sir," he said, _sotto voce_ , if I _do_ mean _sotto voce_ , "this might be an advantageous moment to depart."

And so—we departed. Jeeves had thoughtfully packed our bags before dinner, only laying my traveling suit aside, and so it was but a matter of a moment to don it and my coat and hat while Jeeves whisked my dinner-jacket into the valise. On the ground floor, however, Jeeves did not take us to the gate, but to, instead, the barn, where he loosed the donkey and coaxed it—with some not inconsiderable protest on the part of the donkey—out into the yard.

"We will have to ride it, sir," Jeeves said, and I recoiled.

" _Ride_ it?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," he said. "If you'll pardon me for mentioning it, there is very likely to be some considerable to-do in the castle in the next few hours, and while I think we may count on Lady Florence restraining herself from causing you a _mortal_ injury, should she be induced to, in fact, go for her pistols, the scene is liable to become unpleasant."

"Dash it, Jeeves," I began; but at this point, we were joined in the yard by Anatole, of all people, washed and pressed and scrubbed to a high shine, carrying an enormous bouquet.

"Anatole," I said, rather stiffly; and Jeeves coughed, and then said, "Thank you, Anatole," and held out his hand, passing to Anatole a small quantity of bank-notes.

"But of course!" Anatole beamed. "When I received your letter—"

"Yes, quite," Jeeves said, "we thank you very much for the purchase of the mule. I would like to stress, once again, that while Mademoiselle Gagne is inside, and she is indeed _quite_ distressed, she has stated that she would very much prefer to be alone. She was, indeed, so _very_ fond of that little goat."

Anatole scoffed. "Nonsense, these girls—always they should rather a strong shoulder to cry on, you know it as well as I!" Straightening up.

Jeeves tilted his head. "I know only what the young lady said," he replied, very mildly; but Anatole was already heading for the door to the castle, and Jeeves jerked the lead of the donkey quellingly, as this animal demonstrated its interest in Anatole's passing bouquet.

Alone in the yard outside the castle, I goggled at him. _Goggled_. "Jeeves—"

"Yes, of course, sir, you're quite correct," Jeeves inserted smoothly. "We must hurry, or we shall miss the train," he said, and then swung me up—much to my horror—upon the back of the donkey. 

Now, Jeeves is a very tall, broad-shouldered, handsome sort of fellow, just the sort of person whom one might wish to go swinging one upon—well, whatever sorts of mounts, et cetera, that one might wish to be swung upon, but I _did_ sputter, rather, at being treated bodily in such a fashion. Jeeves has always been exceptionally skilled at ignoring my sputterings, however, merely swinging himself up upon the animal behind me, whereupon it made a loud, indignant sort of sound, but promptly began lurching towards the fields. And thus, we lurched with it. We lumbered. We even went so far as to trundle, at a sedate but inarguably steady pace, away from the castle.

"If Anatole gets shot," I began.

"No, sir," Jeeves said. "I do not think he will be shot. I do think, however, that he will not be treated _quite_ the way he believes to be his due, and that he shall therefore in a week's time, find himself very much more amenable to receiving a mournful and solicitous plea for his return from Mrs. Travers."

I considered this. "Lady Florence _might_ shoot him, though," I said, finally.

"I think it unlikely, sir," Jeeves said. "Lady Florence is indeed prone to exercising her temper, but her pistols are upstairs in her bedroom, and the arrival of a single gentleman bearing flowers—however profoundly unwelcome—is not so much of a threat that she should find it necessary to remove herself up two flights of stairs to collect them. Indeed, I think it most likely that instead all the young ladies should band together to drive him away."

At this point, a thin, high pitched sort of a wail trickled out over the hills. I turned back towards the castle, where I could only just make out a figure running down the slope—and a herd of pale-clad figures spilling out behind it.

"I think they're throwing things at him, Jeeves," I said.

"It does seem probable, sir," he agreed, and then the donkey rounded a bend in the road, and the castle was lost to sight.

"This train," I said.

"Departs in just over three-quarters of an hour," he supplied.

"Will we make it?"

"I believe so," he said. "If you might cling a bit harder, so that we might elevate our pace upon the mule."

"Ah," I agreed; and clung.

"I say, Jeeves," I said, a moment later. Without the dignity of a saddle, my seat wobbled and bounced beneath me. "Now this, I'd have to say, is not quite the triumphant return to the auld sod that I'd imagined, what?"

"Indeed not, sir," said Jeeves, from behind me. "However, I believe we may yet maintain hope that our sojourn upon this animal may be relatively brief, and that our friends and acquaintance shall have no reason to hear of it."

"Oh, blast it, Jeeves, if you insist all the Drones won't know of this before Friday, I'll have to inquire if you've been taking your regular dose of fish. You know that someone in the castle will have witnessed our ignominious departure, and that she will tell her friends, who will tell their maids, who will tell—"

"Sir," Jeeves said, sounding wounded.

"Oh, very well," I said, and subsided.

It was a very fine evening. Not quite sunset, yet, turning all the hills and vineyards the sorts of lush, glittering colors that'd seem at home in a painting, or perhaps on the stage. Everything brushed and glossed and golden.

"Well," I said at last, considering: pond-weed soup, historical treatises, Florence and her pistols. "I suppose there are worse things to befall a man than a ride on a donkey, what?"

Behind me, Jeeves coughed. "Mule, sir."

"Yes, Jeeves," I meekly agreed.

 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

 

**End Notes** : 

  * **French** : I don't really speak French at all, but—as mentioned—my beta does, so they get an extra translation credit on this one. Thanks, buddy! 
  * **Ne pas prévoir c'est déjà gémir** : a Leonardo da Vinci quote that translates roughly to "[lack of foresight leads to grief](https://www.linguee.fr/francais-anglais/traduction/ne+pas+pr%C3%A9voir+c%27est+d%C3%A9j%C3%A0+g%C3%A9mir.html)," more or less (it's literally sort of: "If you don't think about it ahead of time you'll already be whining"). Da Vinci [spent the last several years of his life at the Clos Lucé in Amboise](http://www.vinci-closluce.com/en). I am reliably informed "C'est déjà gémir" on its own is garbage French but does sound appropriately Bertie-ish. 
  * **Dreadful multilingual puns** : L'auberge du Coq— _well_. Only even remotely funny to an English speaker, but _very_ funny to this one. La Palourde et Gousse may merit a little more explanation; _gousse_ , which means "clove" or "bean," like a garlic clove, is also (rather rude) historical French slang for a lesbian. For some reason. Neither of those is a hugely believable French name for an inn. 
  * **Shakespeare** : Bertie briefly (mis)quotes (sort of) Henry IV, Act V, scene 2; Jeeves, for his part, quotes Twelfth Night, Act I, scene 5, and gets it more right. 
  * **Alpaca screams** : [Much as described](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4QezUxGKLI). 
  * **"lower boy"** : It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American reading about what goes on at Eton will feel a tiny bit as though the entirety of Britain is having them on; however, I am [reliably](https://books.google.com/books?id=2RdAAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22lower%20boy%22&pg=PA313#v=onepage&q&f=false) [informed](https://www.etoncollege.com/glossary.aspx#l) not only that "lower boy" has long been the accepted term for a boy in his first through third years at the school, but that "fag" is/was an acceptable synonym. I present this information without comment. 
  * **Euphemisms** : I borrowed liberally from _The Toast_ 's half-parody articles about classic film code words for "[gay](http://the-toast.net/2015/05/22/code-words-for-gay-in-classic-films/)" and "[lesbian](http://the-toast.net/2015/02/24/code-words-lesbianism-classic-films/)," though—much to my dismay—I couldn't work any of the really good ones in. "She keeps her hands in her pockets"—why, yes, indeed, she does. 
  * **Vegetarianism** : veganism, as a term, wasn't defined until significantly after this story takes place, but for what it's worth, in addition to obviously not being vegan, most traditionally-made cheeses are made with animal rennet and are not vegetarian, either. 
  * **sweet (I) roam'd from field to field** : [William Blake, "How sweet I roam'd from field to field"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43684/song-how-sweet-i-roamd-from-field-to-field). A vastly inappropriate selection, Bertie. 
  * **showering rains of melody** : [Percy Shelley, "To a Skylark"](https://interestingliterature.com/2018/12/05/to-a-skylark-a-poem-by-percy-shelley/). A little better. 
  * **_bise_ and _baise_** : "baiser" does mean "to kiss," but in terms of nouns, "bise" is "a kiss" and "baise" is "a something-that-would-raise-the-rating-on-this-story." hashtag author knows just enough French to get into trouble. 
  * **The philosophy of the Amazons** : I suspect that what Bertie overheard them discussing was [Natalie Clifford Barney's _Pensées d'une Amazone_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Clifford_Barney#Epigrams_and_novel), but really, how could one be certain? 
  * **balm to soothe (the) tortured brow** : if we assume that Bertie wasn't making a Bowie reference—which is certainly the _author's_ strongest association with this phrase—he may have got it from [_The Islands of the Blest_](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Islands_of_the_Blest.html?id=yvmfvQEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description), but it looks like even in the early 20th century it was already kind of a cliché, so he probably just picked it up by osmosis. 
  * **"I Wanna Be Loved By You"** : though [arguably perfected by Marilyn Monroe in _Some Like it Hot_ in 1959](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDHlgnRuaM), which is the version most readers are likely to know, this song was [recorded in 1928 by Helen Kane](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hclK-UKJNgk) and was a bit of a hit at the time. 
  * **Patroclus and the Myrmidons** : [It _was_ Patroclus](https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Iliad16.php#anchor_Toc239246129). As Bertie said, he was a very fine scholar of the Greeks. 




End file.
